February Open Day

The weekend is imminent and that means so is our open day. Head over to our brewery on: 

Sunday 7th February

12-7pm

Photo by Dom Hemy

Photo by Dom Hemy

As per usual we will have:

At least 5 Draft Beers
A range of our core, occassional and special bottles
Drink-in or Take-away
Growler fills, if you have a growler handy
Artisanal Scotch Eggs & Sausage Rolls to snack on from Pig & Hay
Tasty, home-made fruit sodas from Square Root

T-shirts & Branded Glassware Merch
Meet the Brewers
Informal Brewery Tours 

We've recently released some really amazing collaborations beers, which you can find more info on here. We will have these on sale as well as brewery exclusive or limited release bombers. How do you like the sound of Red Wine or Tequila Barrel Aged Sadako eh?

But we've also decided to make some changes to how we run things on our open day, making it even better and in order to beat some of the busier periods! Firstly our warehouse, which you may or may not know about, at unit 9 will be the point of call for all take-out beer. If you want any beer for home, ensure you head there! Off-sales won't have you waiting at the brewery bar this time around. Secondly, we've got all-American BBQ and Smokehouse food trader, Redneck Smokehouse, to come on down and serve up delicious hot meals that you can enjoy hand-in-hand with our beers. Vegetarians and vegans, rest assured, we've taken care that there will be options for you too.

And if all that news is not sweet music to your ears, here's our fantastic draught line-up:

A collaboration with Bexar County Brewery that has flown out from the brewery. A treat of a low ABV beer with the right amount of lemon tartness and fruitiness, met with subtle sweet biscuit malt notes and creamy lactose.

This is a inspiring yet classic Pilsner style which strikes a balance between Czech hops and German Pislner malt and yeast. An easy-drinking yet satisfying kind of lager for an easy and satisfying kinda Sunday. 

A luxurious stout with plenty of cacao and freshly roasted coffee flavours. Robust in taste, as is expected from a stout but smooth and subtly creamy because of the addition oats to the grain-bill.

An interesting fruit IPA, originally made with the team from BrewDog Shepherds Bush but re-brewed because of its popularity. Made with chokeberries that give juicy but tart flavours, which we've complimented with tropical fruit notes of lovely Mosaic hops. 

A Heaven Hill barrel aged version of our latest Holy Hoppin' Hell DIPA. This beer is big, bold and beautiful when it comes to aroma, flavour and bitterness. The vanilla and marshmallow notes from the barrel complements the slightly chewier malt-bill of this style of beer. We've got it reigning our taps as the heavyweight for Sunday's line-up.

Check out the event page and see you then!

A Very Happy New Year

It's the very first day of 2016 and we can't help but be excited for what this year will bring nor can we hesitate to reflect on the year just gone. 2015 has been jam-packed, exciting, prosperous and important for us. 

Photo by Matt Curtis

We've grown in more ways than one. For starters, we installed 2 new 20 barrel fermenters, we then installed new Hot and Cold Liquor Tanks and we've massively upped our production. We've also built up our ever-growing team and are currently a happy, beery family of 8 going onto 9. We had welcomed Jonny as a new lead-brewer, who offered insight, some change, new recipes and also afforded time for headbrewer Bryan to make changes to the brewhouse and its management. Due to unfortunate circumstances concerning Jonny's family, we saw him go but we then welcomed another awesome guy, Ryan. It's only been a couple of months, but you can bet on seeing some cool new beers from him soon. 

Photo by Matt Curtis

 

With our growth, we've put more beer out. As a result we've battled with our hop contracts but even then we made a positive out of a tricky situation. Gregg has written a great blog about it all and you will get more of his musings about the "Spreadsheet Ninja side of Brewing" this year. Even though he's not often brewing, Gregg continues to develop some of our recipes. Both him and Bryan are carefully considering our beer range and have re-defined what is "core". We laid "Hit the Lights" to rest to make room for new and more "Weird Beard" brews over the year, which we felt we've definitely achieved.

2015 saw us also develop our skills through the many collaborations we did. Collabs, when done well, are both fun and constructive for everyone involved and here's a list of the fine folk we've had the pleasure to work with last year:

Pig & Porter

Lervig and IndyManBeerCon

Northern Monk

La Débauche

Bexar County Brewery

Kew Brewery

Photo of The Frog Is Fired from IMBC

Aside from brewers, we've also worked with a few other great people, including:

•  Greg Dillon from Great Drams for a thoroughly enjoyable beer-whisky pairing during London Beer City. You can expect more of the same in 2016!
• Kumar Kolar from Karkli. Together we came up with a perfectly beer-matched flavour of his deliciously moreish snacks.

Photo of Karkli Beer Pairing at IMBC

• Hayley from Pig & Hay, who cooked with our beers to make super tasty speciality Scotch Eggs and Sausage Rolls for our AGM and Meet the Brewer event at BrewDog Camden. 
• The team at BrewDog Shepherds Bush to make a beer for BrewDog's annuary Collabfest; we brewed "Safe Word". 
• The Duke's Head Highgate and Matt Curtis for specifically developing and brewing "Duke of Dank" together for a "Cask Is Important" event they hosted.  
• Chris Walker and Josh Smith are two guys we will never fail to appreciate as they are the maestros behind our branding. Of course we're biased but there is truth in the fact that our labels ROCK!

Over the past year we've held and partaken in some really awesome events in and outside London. We've also jetted about the globe to Copenhagen, Athens, Tuscany, Barcelona, Antwerp and Orlando. From tutored tastings, tap-takeovers, meet the brewers, live brews, beer festivals and open days, we really have satisfied our social calendars. We are pretty proud that our open days continue to be well attended and enjoyed, so we'll have more of the same this year for sure. To safeguard against missing out on what we will be getting up to, keep an eye on our blog and Facebook events. We've got plenty lined up already.

 

Photo by Dom Hemy

Hopefully, we've been able to show and share that 2015 has been a great year for us in our beers and antics. Now we've kicked off 2016, we'd want to up the ante and make it a better year than the last. So here's to doing just that.

Cheers and Happy New Year from all of us at Weird Beard!

Winter Open Day Draft List Announced!

So here are the final announcements of the weekend's Open Day:

Sunday 13th December

12-7pm
Weird Beard Brewery

Our smashing, know no bounds, 6 draft beers line up will consist of the following:

Our super-fast-selling, deliciously juicy Cranberry Christmas Stout that boasts roasted and spicy notes from dark malts and rye. Perfect for our festive-themed brewery antics.

The latest batch of our award-winning session I.P.A, this time it's all-American hops Simcoe, Cascade and Chinook for pine and citrus hoppy goodness.

This is a new Black Pilsner inspired by the Japanese drier versions of dark lagers. Chocolate, subtly malt-loaf sweetness and roasted flavours, lifted by coconut fruitiness from Sorachi Ace and herbal hop notes from Hersbrucker.

Our flagship pale ale with tropical fruit aroma and flavours from Pacific Gem that plays with citrussy Citra (errr duh!) hops. We've got this on keg for you to pair with our Karkli Snack collab flavour: Lemon and Ginger, that'll be on sale to chomp on.

Our third collab with our friends from Northern Monk, hence the name, this is a Belgian I.P.A inspired by Houblon Chouffe. Peppery and fruit salad bowl flavours make this is a satisfyingly complex beer that is a bastardized version of a hoppy Belgian I.P.A style.

A deliciously moreish milk stout and an amped up version of our Black Perle. It is more of everything: creamier, slightly sweeter, richer and more chocolate-y. It’s a decadent beer but we suitably add more Hasbean coffee to compliment the roasted flavours of the darker malts used.

We'll be serving pretty much all day so there's plenty of time to catch some (or all) of these tasty brews on draft. Expect thirds and halves of pints as well as larger measures of the lower ABV beers and tasters of anything as always. 

Catch you at the weekend!

Winter Open Day

It was around this time last year that we had our first ever Open Day. Come to think of it, time has really flown!? A year later, we’re just as excited to announce another. 

Make sure you head on over to our West London brewery to join us in our holiday shenanigans. Here are the details:

Sunday 13th December

12-7pm

Since it's the last gathering at the brewery of 2015, we’re dead-set on making it a big one. With all the best things of previous events and plenty more offerings to add to the festive feel of Christmas, we have the following things lined up:

6 beers on Tap

Including specials like ‘Black Christmas’

Growler fill with 10% discount

A range of bottles for drinking-in & take-away

Brewery Exclusive Bombers on sale (Jim Beam B.A. Sadako & Jack’s Rye Smile)

Our collaboration snack recipe with Karkli

Christmas Specials of Pig&Hay wares

Christmas Specials of Square Root Sodas

Super cool, 'Black Christmas' t-shirts (£15)

New Branded Craft Master Glassware (£3)

See you next weekend!

September Tap Room Beer List

Head over this coming Sunday 12-7pm to our brewery where we will be happy to serve you some great beer along with great snacks, food offerings and music.

On tap we'll have:

Our bestseller, a transpacific pale ale with New Zealand Pacific Gem and American Citra hops that give tropical fruit flavours. Excitingly, we have teamed up with Karkli to create the ultimate beer-matched snack and we will be seeking feedback on our exclusive Mariana Trench pairing at this open day! 

A new variation of our Pilsner, with all-American hops: Mosaic, Amarillo and Centennial. It is a go-to beer: crisp, hoppy, quaffable and how lagers should taste.

To mark both of their birthdays, our Gregg and Pig&Porter's Sean collaborated and made this California Common. Boasting biscuit and subtle caramel sweetness, it's a darker lager style that has a fruitiness due to fermentation at ale temperatures. The American kettle-hops and Experimental 431 dry hops add more citrus notes to balance this beer.

A new release from the brewery this week! It is an India Brown Ale, brewed with Muscovado sugar and cacao nibs. Hoppy enough to bridge the chocolatey sweetness and subtle liquorice, it's a really tasty new brew.

Our 200th brew and a triple I.P.A/amped up version of Sorachi Faceplant with Apollo, Summit and Sorachi Ace hops. It's a monster of a beer and does as its name suggests, but remains juicy and deliciously drinkable.

If for any reason, those beers don't take your fancy, we'll have a fridge-full (and brewery full) of other beers for you to choose from to drink in or take away.

September 20th - our next Open Day

We're very pleased to announce it's nearly time for our next brewery taproom and open day.

Head on down for Sunday 20th September 12-7pm.

For the occasion of drinking and enjoying yourselves at our West London brewery, we've got:

4 taps of tasty beer

Limited edition, special & occasional Weird Beard brews

Drink-in or Take-away bottles

Brewery exclusive bottles on sale

Delicious, artisanal Scotch Eggs & Sausage Rolls from Pig&Hay
Tasty Snacks from Karkli
Handcrafted soft drinks by Square Root Soda

Branded T-shirts and glassware on sale

Informal brewery tours

Meet the brewers

Plus our fruit machine will be set up for playing!

We've got to add, that at this open day attendees will get a sneak preview to our beer-food  collaboration with Karkli. We're excitedly looking for feedback on our trials before the final product, so please let us know what you think!

On tap, we plan to have some exceedingly good beer, watch this space for announcements of the line-up. And let's not forget we have some stock of Jim Beam barrel-aged Sadako (imperial stout) 660ml bombers, which we sell exclusively from the brewery.

Don't miss out, see you then!